(1) Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to financial trading systems. More particularly, the invention relates to means and methods of increasing the liquidity of illiquid financial assets and systems by anonymously exchanging bids in such assets. The same principle is also extended to cover illiquid non-financial assets.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Other systems of facilitating financial transactions are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,567,928 issued on Jul. 28, 2009, assigned to JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. discloses a synthetic financial instrument labeled “Total Fair Value Swap” which comprises an agreement between entities regarding streams of cash payments based upon various interest rate factors. Unfortunately, the prior art fails to accommodate or even account for the vast majority of entities that hold assets of an illiquid nature. Neither does it accommodate multiple bids to determine the eventual winner under pre-set rules.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,987,127 issued on Jul. 26, 2011, assigned to JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. is a divisional application of U.S. Pat. No. 7,567,928 referenced above. The '127 patent claims a system to calculate various payment amounts, but fails to provide an open forum for the exchange of assets.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,895,118 issued on Feb. 22, 2011 by Glodjo et al discloses a system of trading multiple items from a group of several items. Credit extending agents are used to facilitate transactions.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,882,019 issued on Feb. 1, 2011 by Toffey discloses a straight through processing trading platform to facilitate sales of fixed income instruments.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,882,011 issued on Feb. 1, 2011 by Sandhu et al discloses a database with various modules to facilitate auction transactions.
As holding cash as an asset is not a considered a prudent long term investment strategy due to factors such as inflation, currency devaluation, the prior art presumption of an entity holding cash for the long term is seldom a realistic premise. Assets other than cash hold their long-term value better but in most cases such assets are also illiquid. Thus, what is needed in the art is a method and system for increasing the liquidity of typically non-liquid assets or liquid assets that have become illiquid due to a downturn in the market. The prior art also lacks means or methods of anonymously matching multiple buyers and sellers desiring to exchange hybrid assets or assets infused or provisioned with liquidity.